G. P. Marsh - Thomas W. Silloway Correspondence

The architect commissioned to design the Vermont State House,
Thomas William Silloway (1828-1910) was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts,
where he also lived and worked as an apprentice to a house carpenter. He
moved to Boston and worked in the office of Ammi B. Young, the architect of
the destroyed Vermont State House. The courthouse in Woodstock, Vermont,
also designed by Young, was destroyed by fire in 1854, and Silloway was
chosen to design a new courthouse, under Thomas E. Powers, the
superintendent of construction of that project as well. Following his work
on the Vermont State House, Silloway studied for the ministry and, in 1862,
was ordained as a minister. He went on to design numerous churches,
including Montpelier's Universalist church in 1865, as well as various
public buildings, including the Goddard Seminary in Barre, 1866-1870, and
the Jenkins Memorial Library in North Conway, New Hampshire. He was also
commissioned as architect of buildings at Buchtel College in Akron, Ohio.
His published works include Text-book of Modern Carpentry, (Boston: Crosby,
Nichols & Co., 1858), and, with Lee L. Powers, The Cathedral Towns
and Intervening Places of England, Ireland, and Scotland: a description of
cities, cathedrals, lakes, mountains, rivers, and watering places, (Boston:
A. Williams, 1883).